DuBard School at Southern Miss Receives $20,000 from Sertoma Club

Representative of the Sertoma Club of Hattiesburg presented a check for $20,000 to The DuBard School for Language Disorders on Thursday, Nov. 21. (Submitted photo)

The Sertoma Club of Hattiesburg presented at gift of $20,000 to The DuBard School for Language Disorders at The University of Southern Mississippi during a special ceremony held Thursday, Nov. 21 at the school.

The gift will be used by the DuBard School toward its mission of sharing the gift of language with individuals with communication disorders, including the written language disorder of dyslexia. DuBard School’s enrollment program is available to children at no charge; however, funding from the state only covers a percentage of the costs, the rest of which must be made up from private donations, like this one from Sertoma.

“We’re delighted that Sertoma Club stands behind our mission,” said DuBard School director Maureen Martin. “For many years they’ve provided tremendous support like this for our organization; words cannot express our gratitude.”

Sertoma is an international organization that has served communities for over 100 years, with a focus on providing assistance for individuals with hearing loss and language disorders.

“After touring the DuBard School years ago, we knew this was an organization we wanted to support,” said David Bounds, president of the Sertoma Club of Hattiesburg.

Bounds said the Sertoma Club started their donations at Southern Miss by creating a scholarship for students majoring in Speech and Hearing Sciences. Once that scholarship became endowed, they wanted to expand their reach.

“We were already supporting future speech-language pathologists who will one day change the lives of students,” Bounds said. “We wanted to do more, and wanted to directly support an organization serving children with language disorders – there was no question the DuBard School was the place to do that.”

“When Sertoma Club first toured the school, we sat in an observation room and watched a young child work with a speech-language pathologist on sounds and phrases. Now that student is working towards her master’s degree in speech language pathology. That’s inspiring. Actually being able to see the effects of our money and lives being changed at the DuBard School is truly motivating and uplifting.”